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Kinhin Question

Hello Fellow Leafers;

When engaged in walking meditation, are there any guidelines as to how to handle turning - the space I walk in is somewhat confined (about a 10 foot (3 metre) space). When I "hit the wall", do I simply do a 180 (like aikido style)?

Re: Kinhin Question

Originally Posted by Sloppy_Zen

Hello Fellow Leafers;

When engaged in walking meditation, are there any guidelines as to how to handle turning - the space I walk in is somewhat confined (about a 10 foot (3 metre) space). When I "hit the wall", do I simply do a 180 (like aikido style)?

Thanks for your thoughts,
-Jim

Are you in a small room or ....?

There is no distance. No start and finish. And vice versa. :P But. My humble suggestion is if it's a very small room. Just do best with the space you have and don't worry about degrees or turns. Just walk.

Re: Kinhin Question

Originally Posted by chicanobudista

Originally Posted by Sloppy_Zen

Hello Fellow Leafers;

When engaged in walking meditation, are there any guidelines as to how to handle turning - the space I walk in is somewhat confined (about a 10 foot (3 metre) space). When I "hit the wall", do I simply do a 180 (like aikido style)?

Thanks for your thoughts,
-Jim

Are you in a small room or ....?

There is no distance. No start and finish. And vice versa. :P But. My humble suggestion is if it's a very small room. Just do best with the space you have and don't worry about degrees or turns. Just walk.

Of course, how it's done in a monastery maybe something else. :wink:

Yes, no long no short ... no place to turn.

You can watch me on some of the Saturday sittings. I tend to turn 90 degrees all at once, a bit like a soldier in the Japanese way.

The only thing I would say, looking at those different flavors of walking meditation by different Buddhist teachers from various traditions, is that the practice of Kinhin in the Soto way is moving Shikantaza ... movement as stillness, walking ahead yet no place to reach, constant total arriving with each step, neither fast nor slow whatever the speed, a single inch containing endless lightyears ...

Re: Kinhin Question

The only thing I haven't seen mentioned is turning clockwise. I think that's universally true, isn't it? I'm far from having visited thousands of centers. :-)

Hi Scott,

Well, I have found that it depends on the room. I have been with groups where people rise from their Zafu, turn to face the room and turn left (counter-clockwise).

Also, in a large Sodo monk's hall (as in the attached drawing), it gets rather compicated, and would depend which side of the room you are sitting on, and whether you are in the middle seats or near the wall ... some turn left, some right.

Re: Kinhin Question

I don't know the origins of this visit to Sojiji, one of the two major training temples of Japanese Soto Zen Buddhism, but the visuals, if not the commentary (which is astonishingly bad), are wonderful. The Youtube description says it was filmed in 1959. I'm guessing for BBC or somesuch...